C8 - Still makes me smile to see this thread running: 7+ pages and still going strong. Seems like the originator gave up on the subject.

Same old complication: folks creating their own definition of "peak oil". Volumes written over that subject alone. For me it hasn't changed in 40+ years from how my first geologist mentor explained it to we when I started at Mobil Oil. Oddly enough he said is wild guess was that we would see more clear signs supporting the concept no too long after 2000. Said it didn't worry him since he would be long dead by then. LOL.

ROCKMAN wrote:Same old complication: folks creating their own definition of "peak oil".

And the definition of "peak oil" is irrelevant to me.

There is a finite amount of oil in the ground. Every barrel that is dug up and burned will never be replaced.

Everything else is just details. Maybe interesting in their own rights but the big picture is already set. Historians in the year 3000 will look back at fossil fuel consumption and it will be a bump around 200-300 years wide, and then it will be over and civilization will have moved on to some other energy source.

diemos wrote:Historians in the year 3000 will look back at fossil fuel consumption and it will be a bump around 200-300 years wide, and then it will be over and civilization will have moved on to some other energy source.

Assuming there will be historians in the year 3,000, or humans for that matter! I am definitely not certain about that, but, then again, I don't make any claims to be able to know what will happen 1,000 years into the future, and I think it is ridiculous to do so. LOL!

No need to shut it down. It's a great place for discussion. Lots of very smart, educated people here. Peak OIl was never just about oil, or energy. We were wrong about Peak OIl, but are right about so many other bad things. Things that aren't going away, oh no. So, don't shut it down. Instead, change the antiquated name, and the focus. Maybe Peak Population? Change or vegetate.Personal note: For those who remember me, kind greetings. I'm a married full-time farmer now (dairy goats, eggs, and some vegetables) in central Virginia, and we're vendors at the local farmers' market. We make a dime and not much more, but it's a life and goats are wonderful critters. I'd still be slinging hash here, but there's no time. Farmers have NO time for anything but farming. That's why agrarian societies tend to be more stable than the city-states.

"Actually, humans died out long ago."---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."---I & my bro.

Peak oil is ultimately about energy, and no amount of ideological views changes that. The only time the term becomes antiquated is when crude oil production goes up readily with no need for shale, and can easily meet middle class demands of the world population.

If there's anything that needs to be changed, it should just be the "Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion" header above. The words overlap when I zoom the page to 133 pct.

The word "eschatology" implies that peak oil is part of a religious doctrine. Thats a very wrong-headed way to look at it.

Perhaps Peak Oil is part of your religion but as originally defined by scientists like Dr. Hubbert the concept of peak oil is a scientific theory. Dr. Hubbert developed a mathematical model called Hubbert linearization that claimed to predict exactly when peak oil would occur, but that model has since been falsified.

However the falsification of Hubbert's mathematical model purporting to predict the timing of peak oil doesn't disprove the theory of peak oil any more then Galileo's original miscalculation of the exact acceleration due to gravity disproves the theory of gravity.

Cheers!

The lack of speed has to go faster---Joe BidenI will defeat Joe Biden---Joe Biden-----------------------------------------------------------Keep running between the raindrops.

For me, "dynamic" refers to the effects of and factors connected to peak oil.

For example, one may argue that if demand is low enough, then peak oil won't take place for a long time. That's the mistake revealed by this drama queen thread: the assumption that if prices are low due to weak demand, then we're "saved" from peak oil. But low demand is what also takes place when production reaches a peak before it drops.

In short, we've been saved from an economic crash due to peak oil by having an economic crash due to the effects of a pandemic. Before that, we were also saved from the same due to the effects of increasing debt. That's the same increasing debt that was needed to access more expensive oil, of which production can only be maintained as long as high prices are high, which in turn leads to a weaker global economy because disposable income isn't that high.

The word "eschatology" implies that peak oil is part of a religious doctrine. Thats a very wrong-headed way to look at it.

Perhaps Peak Oil is part of your religion but as originally defined by scientists like Dr. Hubbert the concept of peak oil is a scientific theory. Dr. Hubbert developed a mathematical model called Hubbert linearization that claimed to predict exactly when peak oil would occur, but that model has since been falsified.

However the falsification of Hubbert's mathematical model purporting to predict the timing of peak oil doesn't disprove the theory of peak oil any more then Galileo's original miscalculation of the exact acceleration due to gravity disproves the theory of gravity.

Cheers!

Hubert's peak is not falsified if we restrict to refer to conventional oil.

Shale's eroei might not be enough to sustain civilization. And overall average eroei of oil is said to be near 10 as we've gone after worse sources.

asg70 wrote:

ralfy wrote:the same increasing debt that was needed to access more expensive oil

If that oil was really so expensive then it would have translated into retail prices. The fracking industry isn't drilling in order to sell oil below cost. So you're wrong.

They complained about prices when prices were at 100$. They've been financing through stocks and more debt, but it is said they need at least 50+$ price. Even so many have gone bankrupt and like 90% are unprofitable.

Price at the pump is affected not by cost but by price per barrel, processing, delivery, and storage costs, etc., and may be mitigated by any gov't subsidies. What drives price per barrel is a combination of demand and financial speculation, with the latter masking the former, as seen today.

That's why the thread makes no sense: it tried to explain the peak oil "theory" using price, and now price at the pump. Product cost will still go up because of physical limitations and gravity, and that's neither theoretical nor a religious belief.

ralfy wrote:Product cost will still go up because of physical limitations and gravity

And product cost can not go up without cost at the pump eventually following suit. Point being that the invisible hand of the market does indeed self-regulate.

Everyone has to realize that shale has been there waiting to be exploited since the start. Even if we had all of 2020's technology, I doubt much of it would have been developed as long as there was easier to drill oil available. The factors that delayed the exploitation of shale then are not that different from the shuttering of shale now. In both cases all it does is pause things until a time when demand for oil drives prices back up to a level that is economical for shale. Also remember that it was The Oil Drum who completely miscalculated the economics of shale back in the day, leading to it being discredited and going defunct. But today that phenomenon of being overly pessimistic about shale's prospects persists. History has proven that while it IS more expensive to recover shale, it remains viable to do so while keeping oil safely in-the-pocket to persist BAU as we know it. Unconventional blew up the eschatology (yes, eschatology) of Hubert's conventional oil curve and so we are now in territory where classic peak oil concepts and assumptions are no longer useful.

The end result is that the much anticipated day of peak oil reckoning shifts further and further into the future to the point where one might question the validity of having a forum hosted on said domain.

BTW, I remember the old IEA chart where peakers mocked at the zone labeled "future discoveries" or "unconventional" meant to compensate for conventional oil depletion. This leaning on unconventional was also a hallmark of Daniel Yergin's book The Prize. All of this was mocked, mocked, mocked. Well, it turns out they were right all along, at least in the short to medium term.

BOLD PREDICTIONS-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.